For this assignment I chose these five web 2.0 tools: Tuber Chop, Prezi, Xtimeline, Kubbu, and Writeboard.
http://www.tubechop.com Tube Chop is a video tool that allows you to cut any part or portion from an already existing Youtube video and share it with others. This tool is very useful in the sense that sometimes you only need to show a clip from the whole video to show the point you are trying to make. Once creating a shorter clip from the movie you can share it with others via Tube Chop. I have always wondered if there was a way to just take a clip of videos and use them as a way of relaying visual information to your audience and this tool does exactly that. In my classroom this could be very useful especially in teaching History. There are a plethora of historical educational videos made on Youtube that can be cut up and used by students. Youtube has blown up in terms of users and even more viewers in the past five years and I can only imagine what it will be like in another five. High Schoolers use Youtube daily for non-educational related things so incorporating it in the classroom is a good idea to grab and keep the attention of students as well.
http://prezi.com/ Prezi is another great web 2.0 tool to use in the classroom. This is a tool that helps with creating and editing presentations either individually or as a group. I think this tool is more accessible to students and may be easier to edit and collaborate together as a group. Having a group presentation project on Prezi allows students to work from their own individual computers at home but also connected to each other via internet. Sometimes it is hard to get students to come together outside of the classroom due to extracurricular activities and just life itself getting in the way. With Prezi students can almost set their own schedule with a group presentation and it allows them to work on it whenever they have time, which may be late at night or at the wee hours of the morning. Presentations will be a requirement in my classroom for at least one assignment and upon finding Prezi I am sure that it will be a group presentation. I used to be turned off by the idea of group presentations due to first hand experiences of not having a time that all the members could meet therefore making it hard but this web 2.0 tool almost erases that problem entirely.
http://www.xtimeline.com/index.aspx Xtimeline was another web 2.0 tool I decided to further explore. Timelines are a great visual tool to use in the classroom, especially a history class. A timeline helps better facilitate an area of time, like the dark age in Europe, or the civil rights movement in America, and even the life of an important historical figure. Xtimeline allows you to create a free timeline that you can share with others. With Xtimeline I could make a single assignment with my students just using the Xtimeline website. I would ask each student to either make a timeline for the time period we are studying or a specific historical figure of that time. With this assignment it gets students involved in history and using the internet. This assignment is also a perfect example of technology integration in the classroom.
http://kubbu.com Kubbu is a web 2.0 tool that is created and used by both students and the teachers. One struggle I know that will be the most difficult in a classroom full of high school teenagers is keeping their attention, especially when it comes to History. With Kubba Teachers can create an account where they can make different types of study aid games. First thing that really intrigued me was the “games’ part of it. Kids/teenagers love games, that is one thing I do know. Games help kids get involved and interactive with the material being learned. With Kubba I can easily make some homework assignments games which students can do in the leisure of their own home. Kubba also allows the teacher to make quizzes for students. Having online quizzes allows students to not feel as stressed about studying or actually taking the quiz. It lets them take it on their own time when they are ready, of course within the set time limit and deadline assigned. The last thing that I really liked about this tool was that it lets teachers track individual and group progress using a result database which makes it easier for the teacher to know how her students are doing and if she needs to talk with the students about their progress.
http://37signals.com/writeboard-retired This last web tool has been changed to Base Camp Classic, the white board version was free and this new one has a small fee of $20. There were other tools that were very similar to this and almost the exact same under the writing tools of the cooltoolsforschools wikispace page. This site is a tool used for writing. A huge part of any history class is writing. Any and all types of writing assignments are fair game in a history class, almost just as much as an actual english class. This site lets students write a paper and submit it to the site. Once the paper is submitted other classmates can read, review, and edit it. I am actually very excited for this web tool because I have always thought it would be better for students and teachers if writing assignments could be submitted online and edited in this fashion. Using the internet is a great tool that all students should know how to use, most kids/teenagers use the computer and technology on a daily basis so using it in the classroom is an awesome way to get students more involved.
For this assignment I chose these five web 2.0 tools: Tuber Chop, Prezi, Xtimeline, Kubbu, and Writeboard.
http://www.tubechop.com
Tube Chop is a video tool that allows you to cut any part or portion from an already existing Youtube video and share it with others. This tool is very useful in the sense that sometimes you only need to show a clip from the whole video to show the point you are trying to make. Once creating a shorter clip from the movie you can share it with others via Tube Chop. I have always wondered if there was a way to just take a clip of videos and use them as a way of relaying visual information to your audience and this tool does exactly that. In my classroom this could be very useful especially in teaching History. There are a plethora of historical educational videos made on Youtube that can be cut up and used by students. Youtube has blown up in terms of users and even more viewers in the past five years and I can only imagine what it will be like in another five. High Schoolers use Youtube daily for non-educational related things so incorporating it in the classroom is a good idea to grab and keep the attention of students as well.
http://prezi.com/
Prezi is another great web 2.0 tool to use in the classroom. This is a tool that helps with creating and editing presentations either individually or as a group. I think this tool is more accessible to students and may be easier to edit and collaborate together as a group. Having a group presentation project on Prezi allows students to work from their own individual computers at home but also connected to each other via internet. Sometimes it is hard to get students to come together outside of the classroom due to extracurricular activities and just life itself getting in the way. With Prezi students can almost set their own schedule with a group presentation and it allows them to work on it whenever they have time, which may be late at night or at the wee hours of the morning. Presentations will be a requirement in my classroom for at least one assignment and upon finding Prezi I am sure that it will be a group presentation. I used to be turned off by the idea of group presentations due to first hand experiences of not having a time that all the members could meet therefore making it hard but this web 2.0 tool almost erases that problem entirely.
http://www.xtimeline.com/index.aspx
Xtimeline was another web 2.0 tool I decided to further explore. Timelines are a great visual tool to use in the classroom, especially a history class. A timeline helps better facilitate an area of time, like the dark age in Europe, or the civil rights movement in America, and even the life of an important historical figure. Xtimeline allows you to create a free timeline that you can share with others. With Xtimeline I could make a single assignment with my students just using the Xtimeline website. I would ask each student to either make a timeline for the time period we are studying or a specific historical figure of that time. With this assignment it gets students involved in history and using the internet. This assignment is also a perfect example of technology integration in the classroom.
http://kubbu.com
Kubbu is a web 2.0 tool that is created and used by both students and the teachers. One struggle I know that will be the most difficult in a classroom full of high school teenagers is keeping their attention, especially when it comes to History. With Kubba Teachers can create an account where they can make different types of study aid games. First thing that really intrigued me was the “games’ part of it. Kids/teenagers love games, that is one thing I do know. Games help kids get involved and interactive with the material being learned. With Kubba I can easily make some homework assignments games which students can do in the leisure of their own home. Kubba also allows the teacher to make quizzes for students. Having online quizzes allows students to not feel as stressed about studying or actually taking the quiz. It lets them take it on their own time when they are ready, of course within the set time limit and deadline assigned. The last thing that I really liked about this tool was that it lets teachers track individual and group progress using a result database which makes it easier for the teacher to know how her students are doing and if she needs to talk with the students about their progress.
http://37signals.com/writeboard-retired
This last web tool has been changed to Base Camp Classic, the white board version was free and this new one has a small fee of $20. There were other tools that were very similar to this and almost the exact same under the writing tools of the cooltoolsforschools wikispace page. This site is a tool used for writing. A huge part of any history class is writing. Any and all types of writing assignments are fair game in a history class, almost just as much as an actual english class. This site lets students write a paper and submit it to the site. Once the paper is submitted other classmates can read, review, and edit it. I am actually very excited for this web tool because I have always thought it would be better for students and teachers if writing assignments could be submitted online and edited in this fashion. Using the internet is a great tool that all students should know how to use, most kids/teenagers use the computer and technology on a daily basis so using it in the classroom is an awesome way to get students more involved.